State’s Child Support Computer Plan Rejected

Worsening the biggest computer debacle in California history, the federal government has rejected the state’s stopgap proposal for a new child support system, saying it would be too costly and inefficient.

The decision not only increases the state’s exposure to as much as $400 million in penalties for not having a statewide computer system, but it essentially blots out 18 months of planning for a network that was to help provide support to more than 3 million children.

“What this means, at the very least, is a significant delay while we start over again to figure out how to do child support collection in California,” said state Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey). “We just got another layer deeper into the hole. It’s an amazing mess.”

California’s computer fiasco stems from its failure to meet the federal government’s 1997 deadline to come up with a statewide system. Its first try flopped to the tune of $171 million, and its second attempt barely got off the ground before the federal government shot it down this week.

The penalties for all this failure amount to $12 million this year alone. That figure may rapidly rise in coming years until it reaches a cumulative figure of about $400 million by 2002. After that, it would cost the state 30% of its federal funding for child support administration, or more than $100 million annually.

What’s more significant, the state’s computer woes are one reason it is ranked near the bottom in child support nationwide, and legislators in Sacramento are considering sweeping changes to a program that is more than $8 billion behind in collections for California youngsters.

Statewide, four of every five families who are owed child support--most of whom are on welfare--don’t receive a dime, and others must navigate a giant bureaucracy. On the other side, computer errors ranging from wildly fluctuating bills to the wrong man being charged for child support have shattered lives.

Officials could not say Friday how much they had spent preparing the rejected computer system, and the newly ensconced Davis administration was turning its attention to what now must be California’s third plan for a statewide child support computer. Many agree that automation is essential to improving the state’s beleaguered child support system.

“Everybody in California wants to see significant improvement in this program,” said Stan Trom, head of Ventura County’s child support office. “Until we get by this issue, that’s not going to happen to the degree it should.”

Without a unified state computer system, some counties have been left tracking cases on index cards. When parents move from one county to another their cases can languish for years.

The condition of the state’s child support system has prompted legislators to consider bills by the Democratic leadership to remove the program from California’s 58 district attorneys, who oversee child support in each county.

Bowen says the sorry tale of California’s attempts to automate its child support system has one constant theme: “It’s very difficult for the state to decide what it wants to do, and part of that is because the D.A.s do not want to give up any control.”

The failure is also one of a series of high-profile computer catastrophes in the state government. In 1995 the Department of Motor Vehicles pulled the plug on its new system after spending $51 million, and a state audit in 1996 found that poor management decisions forced the state to pay millions of dollars in unnecessary legal fees over a computer system for the state lottery.

Recognizing that automation is essential to a functioning child support system that handles millions of cases, the federal government a decade ago required every state to construct one by 1997 or face cuts in its funding.

California’s first crack at child support automation was a resounding failure. After five years and $171 million, the Wilson administration in 1997 abruptly scrapped the project, declared it unworkable and opened legal action against its contractor, Lockheed IMS.

Lockheed officials contend that the state bungled the project, with six project managers over five years. They also complained that the state’s district attorneys effectively undermined the system by demanding that it be customized to their individual approaches.

In the wake of that failure, some offices, like Ventura County’s, had to run on unfinished versions of the system, while others were left only with pen and paper. Others relied on individually constructed systems. Los Angeles County had built its own separate computer system that had been approved by the federal government.

Rather than take another stab at the single system that the federal government mandated, California’s district attorneys pushed for networking several of their own local systems. After months of negotiating, the Legislature warily approved having the state’s 58 counties use a “consortium” of four systems as an interim solution, hoping to head off federal penalties.

Child support advocates objected to the plan, saying a consortium of separate systems would be too expensive and unwieldy. They called it an example of how district attorneys’ parochial interests dictate the state’s child support policies.

“If you’re going to go down a road, why build a detour?” asked Nora O’Brien, state director of the Assn. of Children for the Enforcement of Support. “Why not just build a road?”

But Trom, the Ventura County child support director, said prosecutors were just being helpful. “The state did not have a contingency plan,” he said. “The D.A.s were offering the only solution to get us through that mess.”

On Thursday, word reached Sacramento that the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees child support programs, rejected that solution.

State officials had drafted hundreds of pages worth of plans arguing for $1.3 billion in federal funding for the system, but the federal officials found the proposal too expensive and inefficient at serving children, agency spokesman Michael Kharfen said.

“We think they can do better than that,” he said.

Kharfen left the door open to continued federal help for counties using some of the four computer systems on an interim basis, but said the federal government’s position was unwavering.

“The path is clear,” he said. “There isn’t anything out there that can divert them from developing a single statewide system.”

California is one of only nine states without a child support computer system.